November 2017 McDougall Weigh In Thread

[amandamechele]

Welcome to the November Weigh-In Thread for Dr McDougall's Maximum Weight Loss Program.

For the program details visit the MWL Guidelines thread in this forum. Please check out as many of the links as you have time for, there is so much here to discover!
A couple of other great resources, for those just starting out, are from Jeff Novick the staff dietician for the program: The Ultimate Guide to Free Calorie Density (MWL) Resources and his 1 hour video explanation on Calorie Density: How to Eat More, Weigh Less and Live Longer.

Today I was informally perusing the Education tab of the McDougall website looking for some MWL recipe ideas for the next couple of weeks. I was thinking it's time to try a new recipe or two. While scanning, I noticed the Featured Recipe Videos section; It's fantastic! The videos are prepared by Jeanne Schumacher and are around 1 minute in length. Many, many of them are made using MWL recipes. Yay!
Sweet Potato Beginnings
Breakfast Apple Rice
Potato Waffle Stir Fry
Alu Gobi
Fried Rice
Vegetable Sweet Potato Chowder


The food looks delicious and the music had me dissolving into giggles waiting for a French-Canadian producer to pop out from around the corner and tell me I'd just been somehow duped by cheaply dressed comedic-actors a la Just For Laughs, a Canadian version of Candid Camera with no sound just a kooky sound track playing.
Food I can eat and fun music, these are my kind of shows!

While I was watching the vignettes, above, YouTube then suggested the following 2 items to me (Thank you YouTube). These were great and I hadn't watched them before either; Mary McDougall goes through kitchen preparation and skills for success on the McDougall plan and in a second chapter, label reading.
Dr.McDougall- Fighting the Big Fat Lies with Fad Free Truth, Chapter Six- Kitchen Essentials
Dr.McDougall- Fighting the big fat lies with fad free truth, Chapter Two- Reading Between the Lines

So with Mary and Jeanne's help, let's get cooking everyone and see what kinds of recipes we can inspire each other with. American Thanksgiving is this month and I'd love to hear what everyone has planned for their feast meal!

See you all Friday!

Amy

Here are the standard monthly instructions for participating in this thread:

Our weigh in's are on Fridays and you have until 12 PM PST on Saturday to report.

Anyone is welcome to join the weekly weigh in group as long as they follow the McDougall principles. We recommend following the Maximum Weight Loss (MWL) plan or the Mary's Mini's Plan.

There is a sticky at the top of this forum on the guidelines for the MWL program.

In order to tally the results please submit your results by posting the total pounds you have lost or gained that week. You don't have to share your total weight if you'd rather keep that to yourself. This is an honor system so we take the gain, loss or maintain you give us in order to tally. (Please make a new post each week)

If you are a new member and would like to join but don't have a weight to be counted for the week then you will be counted either as a body with a zero starting weight, or when you check in for the weekly weigh in the following week. Large amounts of weight lost over a period of months or weeks, prior to joining the weekly weigh in group, will not be counted towards the weekly total.

If you measure your weight in something other than pounds please convert the measurement to pounds.

All gains will be counted towards the total to encourage weekly participation. Posting is encouraged whether it's a gain, a loss, or a maintain.

You are welcome to share as little or as much as you want on your weight loss journey here in this thread. We encourage members of the group to talk to each other, cheer each other on and set goals together.

This thread is for the mutual support of all who wish to participate.

[zsilent1]

Happy November Everyone!

Amy, thanks for the link to those videos. I was not aware of them and love them! Short and sweet and wonderful. The music is great.

Did I ever have a learning experience. Sunday my son in law made us the most delicious sushi. He even went to the Asian store in the Strip District in Pittsburgh to get special brown Japanese sushi rice. He made my serving compliant. I absolutely love sushi. Well, not even thinking, totally into the groove of my past behavior, I made up the wasabi and soy mixture for dipping my pieces in. Oh, it was so good! Just like it always is. I ate it all up and used all the dipping sauce I’d made. I was so busy that day that I forgot about eating lunch. The sushi meal was good and light and I had a nice green salad with it. I thought I’d done pretty good staying compliant that day.

Next day, Monday morning rolls around and I get on the scale... holy mackerel! 4 lbs gained! What the heck! Then I realize all the sodium I unconsciously consumed with the soy sauce was the cause. Well, 3 days later, today, I’m back on track weight wise. Geeze! All due to all that salt. Next time maybe a couple drops of soy sauce or none at all. Lesson learned. As an aside, I did do a lot of peeing.

On ward and upward,

Susan

[peach1]

Thank you

[Peppadew]

Hi all!

I'm new to this forum, and would like to join your weight loss journey.

I started trying to help a collegue find healthy recipes to eat as she became a vegetarian, and ate mostly very expensive meat replacers. As she is a student, I wanted to help her out by teaching her how to cook. In my search for some nice vegetarian recipes, I came across Dr McDougall's videos, and ended up turning vegan myself, and convert my whole family to this way of eating!!

I have stopped eating all animal products about three months ago, and within a month had to stop my blood pressure medication as my blood pressure fell so low that I became dizzy! I lost about 6 pounds since then, but still have a HUGE amount I will have to lose before I can count myself in the healthy BMI range.

I have been very lenient on breads and pastas up to now, as I had to retrain myself to accept starches back into my diet, coming from several (failed) attempts at weight loss using high protein diets, and maintaining the idea that all starches are fattening. So I guess its out with breads and pastas for now. (Its going to be hard for me as bread is my favourite comfort food!)

My BMI is currently 44, so this is really REALLY necessary.

Something I have a bit of a challenge with that I hope I can get some advice and support on as we go along:
1) I am ADD and really have trouble organising my shopping, my meal planning, my day.
2) While I am very overweight, my children are skinny, with one being a VERY picky eater with a HUGE attraction to sugars. She avoids eating beans and pulses unless mommy forces her to eat, which I don't do often as I don't feel its conductive to her already negative outlook on food. She is very slight built, with her bony arms and legs appearing underweight.

So my question is: How the heck do I balance my 'less nutrient dense"' eating with cooking 'more nutrient dense' so my active and picky kids may eat enough??

Thanks for this great initiative!

[ANNAUK]

1 pound loss for me
Have moved hone again since the October thread hence the lack of posting
Good luck all )))) xxxxx

[zsilent1]

Hi Group Mates!

Happy to report a 2 lb loss this week. So glad, after my experience with the sodium water retention experience.

I've been eating alot of potatoes and veggies lately. Potatoes are very satisfying and can be prepared in any number of delicious ways or just keep it simple with them too. I bake a bunch, eat some and put the remainder in the frige. They are so good with the baked skins! I like them cubed on salads too.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week. Hang in there!

Susan

[Werner1950]

I am 171 today. Meaning I have actually gained a pound.

Actually, I think I messed up. Last weeks measurement that I reported (170 lbs) was on a different scale. I was on vacation at the cottage.

So for two weeks, I have not gained, I have not lost. So don't add my "gain" to the group. I'm plateaued, it seems.

Let's just do a reset, and let's say I am just starting anew this week at 171.

[BeHealthy]

Hi everyone! I lost one pound.

I really was hoping for more, but hey... I'll take it. The week started great and I actually navigated through the Halloween sugar zone pretty well. My choices during the past two days weren't good though, which is why I'm not seeing the results I had hoped for. I'm bound and determined to keep rolling with healthy eating and make better progress.

[paulc]

Signing on to join the MWL group program. Good idea, great timing to help keep tabs on holiday festivities.
Starting weight is 173 lbs. Next Friday's entry will post first week results.
PC

[galooop]

Lost 2.0 LBS

Happy to be back on track.
Just want to STAY on track now.

Chris

[moonlight]

I'm starting with the monthly weigh in today at 207lbs. I'll report weight loss (hopefully) next week!

[Suey51]

Hello everyone,

I'm posting a zero gain/loss this week as still away from home. Hoping this is backed up by the scales when I get home but am keeping relaxed about it. If I have gained weight, I'm confident I can lose it again by closer adherence to this way of eating. I'm in this for the long term, so each experiment and each lesson learned is valuable.

Amy - thanks for those video links. The music on the recipe ones did make me smile. Reminded me of the soundtracks to old silent movies!

Susan - your sodium story made me chuckle. It's one of the things I love about this way of eating, there are so many opportunities to learn

Peach1 - so sorry to hear about the sad loss. Way too young

Welcome Peppadew - I've found keeping food simple and repeating meals makes planning and shopping easier. I've had the same breakfast most days, porridge/oatmeal with fruit, and surprisingly it doesn't get boring. For lunch it's usually homemade veggie and bean soup, with cooked rice or potatoes added to the soup as I reheat it or a big salad with potatoes and beans or legumes. For dinner it's either potatoes or rice, with beans or legumes plus salad and/or green/yellow veggies. I've mostly stayed away from bread and pasts as I find them easy to overeat. I batch cook things like rice, potatoes, soups, curries, stews, beans/legumes so I have plenty of ingredients for a quick meal, and batch chop veggies for meals or snacks.
When my step children come to stay at weekends, at meal times, we tend to put sharing dishes in the middle of the dining table for us to help ourselves. That means I can have more of the green veggies or salad for example, and less rice, which reduces my meal's overall calorie density. Don't have experience of full-time child feeding so don't know whether that approach would work for you. I also sneak those little red lentils into soups, stews or a tomato sauce, as they disintegrate quickly.

Congrats to everyone on another week of eating this way xx

[Sundog]

New to this group! Weighed 250.8 this morning. Excited to go on this weight loss journey with all of you. I have been eating WFPB no oil,sat, or sugar. Weight is not moving. Today is a new day.

[PerazziGirl]

Weighed in at 177.8 this morning. Was 174 a few days ago but had a lot of salt yesterday... Ready to lose weight and not consider myself to be dieting. Time to start living!

[stillcrazy]

I am returning with a weight of 223.6. I kind of lost the plot over the summer! I read the maximum weight loss book again, or most of it, so i feel motivated to do this. I definitely need help staying focused though. I’m looking forward to a good loss this coming week.